War on Waste: Craig Reucassel confronts supermarkets over 'ugly' bananas

They're Australia's top-selling food. But every day, millions of good bananas are thrown away.

Craig Reucassel is atop a mountain of green bananas, on a farm in far north Queensland. They'll be delicious once they're ripe. But our major supermarkets refuse to sell them. This pile of fruit will be left to rot.

According to Coles and Woolworths, Australians won't buy bananas that are "too bent". Or too straight. Too long, short, fat or skinny.

Reucassel watches in horror as workers use measuring tapes to assess freshly picked fruit. Of the 80 million they grow each year, they're forced to discard more than 30 million.

Australians are mad for bananas: they're our top-selling food. But only those that meet bizarre cosmetic requirements reach the shelves. "It drove me insane," says Reucassel, who examines "ugly fruit" in a three-part series ABC series, War on Waste. "Cavendish bananas can't be 'too straight' but Lady Fingers can't be 'too bent'.

"We live in the city, we go to the supermarket and it all looks great. The more separated we become from [how food is made], the more likely we are not to care."

In the program – which also tackles coffee cup, plastic bag and fashion waste – Reucassel examines our beautiful banana obsession. Naturally, retailers blame customers for being fussy. Yet their customers are appalled once they learn the truth. Rejecting perfectly edible bananas, they say, is ridiculous. Not to mention struggling farmers, whose margins are already wafer-thin. Or the fact that food waste in landfill creates greenhouse gases 25 times more potent than car fumes.

Farm workers use a measuring tape to determine which bananas reach our supermarkets.Credit:ABC

Reucassel, a member of The Chaser, has an instinct for turning all this into attention-grabbing stunts. He stuffs a Melbourne tram full of cardboard coffee cups, for instance, then guides it around town. (Australians burn through 1 billion of these cups each year, unaware their plastic lining means they can't be recycled.) He even chases politicians with a giant ball of plastic bags, urging them to ban this environmental scourge.

"We have to convert these statistics into something [visually arresting], otherwise they get lost," he says. "I use very Australian terminology, like 'How many MCG stadiums would be filled by our food waste each year?' "

Disposable fashion: Australians discard a combined six tonnes of clothing every 10 minutes.Credit:ABC

The answer is six: "A big problem is over-purchasing. You go the supermarket and go, 'Oh, two for one!' Then you don't eat it, and it dies out in your fridge.

"I don't want to overgeneralise, but the older people [I interviewed] tend to use all their food. I've even heard the suggestion that Instagram creates food waste, because people are constantly trying to create the 'perfect' meal."

I've even heard the suggestion that Instagram creates food waste, because people are constantly trying to create the 'perfect' meal.

Craig Reucassel

This is also a factor in the "disposable fashion" trend, he suspects: "The attitude is, 'I've put it on Instagram now. I can't be seen wearing this at another party.

"[My] shirts used to be a hundred bucks each. Now you can get them for $15. It's like buying a sandwich."

Craig Reucassel is waging a War on Waste.Credit:ABC

Some argue that poorer people can't be blamed for buying cheap clothes. Besides, governments should ensure fair pay and safety for those who make them.

Reucassel sees merit in this: "After the Rana Plaza collapse [which killed 1129 people in 2013], some companies went, 'We're going to pull out Bangladesh.' But that leaves people without jobs. What we're saying is, 'Stay – but ensure higher standards. Pay the workers more. Even if the clothes become slightly more expensive, they'll last longer.

"The problem occurs when you buy a $5 shirt [made in poorly paid or risky conditions] every week or two. Then they build up, and you chuck them out because the season's changed."

At the end of this year, Reucassel will film a "report card" update.

Bananas are a likely focus. In the first episode, he confronts Woolworths' sustainability chief, Adrian Cullen, urging him to hide "imperfect" fruit among the regular specimens. Will shoppers even notice?

Reucassel suspect they won't. Indeed, we already have a case study: Cyclone Larry in 2005.

"Supermarkets were forced to accept [whatever they could] from banana farmers," he says. "They explained it – and people accepted it. You can change behaviour over the longer term.

"If there's a hole in it, or it's being cut or smashed, I understand it won't go in the shop. But when you're talking about the size of the fruit – that's as edible as the one next to it – it's just ridiculous.